LeMond III

[Irondan]

There have been some dubious comments that have been posted in this thread that have been since removed.

Not only that but things are getting very personal.

Consider this your warning before you post the next comment that ignores common decency, forum rules, or the human race.

Edit: Not directed at any one particular member.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

Just a few years back Cadel was linked to Ferrari and I have not noted Greg saying that Cadel's link to Ferrari is not good for the sport.

Because no one asked him to comment on this.

Greg did comment on Cadel but made no connection with Cadel and Ferrari. To me that is strange considering Gregs position on Ferrari.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

Just a few years back Cadel was linked to Ferrari and I have not noted Greg saying that Cadel's link to Ferrari is not good for the sport.

So unless Lemond picks up the baton and comments on every single GT winners he is therefore a hypocrite and therefore probably a doper. (Let's ignore the fact that he did pick THE biggest doper to comment on, which if nothing else opened HIMSELF up to scrutiny and accusations of hypocrisy from Lance boys. )

Not really the "catalyst" for Gregs input on Lance was him being informed of the Ferrari connection. Seems that if there is a conection with another cyclist he would have had input. He mention's him but not any connection to Dr. Ferrari in at least one interview I remember reading.

 

[ebandit]

?

Ferrari

Because no one asked him to comment on this. Is this so hard to understand ?

Greg did comment on Cadel but made no connection with Cadel and Ferrari. To me that is strange considering Gregs position on Ferrari.

was cadel/ferrari not much more of secret....?

for many years this was dismissed....and even recently it has been disputed..

Mark L

 

[ScienceIsCool]

Re: Re:

Just a few years back Cadel was linked to Ferrari and I have not noted Greg saying that Cadel's link to Ferrari is not good for the sport.

So unless Lemond picks up the baton and comments on every single GT winners he is therefore a hypocrite and therefore probably a doper. (Let's ignore the fact that he did pick THE biggest doper to comment on, which if nothing else opened HIMSELF up to scrutiny and accusations of hypocrisy from Lance boys. )

I'll add that when Greg started questionning Armstrong, he had everything to lose in the process. He was pointing the finger (even in a subtle manner) at the most powerful man in town. It's inconsistent with view of a machiavelian, calculating spirit who managed to hide he started to blood dope at 15 and took EPO before nobody knew it existed.

That is not entirely true. LeMond was already losing his bike business through his own acumen. When Armstrong started promoting Trek they were going from strength to strength. The only thing LeMond was trying to do was save his own bike brand which was falling away to nothing.

By pointing the finger at Armstrong, LeMond was actually trying to gain back, not lose. That has always been his strategy. Whether a rider dopes or not wasn't high on LeMond's agenda.

Armstrong working with Ferrari was just a convenient truth for LeMond. Anyone who was on the bike game knew Armstrong was working with him well before 2001.

In 2008, Trek president John Burke told the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, “Had all the stars aligned with Lance and Greg, if [LeMond] had kept a positive relationship, [the LeMond brand] would have ended up a $30 [million] to $35 million brand.”
http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/01/news/walsh-on-lemond-enduring-the-vengeance-of-armstrong_271109

John Swanson

 

[kwikki]

@john swanson

That was about the same time Trek settled a lawsuit with Lemond which involved them paying $100,000 to a charity of his choosing.

Avaricious old Greg.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Comments from Steve Tilford in his blog:

Guys-I was hesitant to do this post because of the “issues” that Eddie B. had, especially the 1984 Olympic games. Doping in the sport of cycling was a completely different animal back in the 80’s. If you did happen happen to come back positive, you sat out 2 weeks. Look at Alexi’s history. How many days did he serve for, what, 3 doping violations?

What happened in LA with the blood transfusions was inexcusable. Ed Burke, Falsetti, Eddie and gang got very lucky they didn’t kill someone in that fiasco. But, it wasn’t against the rules. No one lost an Olympic medal, no one had to sit out a day.

I don’t think it is fair to label Eddie B. as the “Father of Doping”. Not even close. I have never run into one rider that has told me to my face that Eddie B. encouraged them to use drugs to race bicycles. (Inga, are you stating that here, that he offered or explicitly said to you that you needed to take drugs to race bicycles?)

Like I stated in my post, Eddie and I didn’t get along very well for a very long time. But, there was never any issue with anything to do with doping in the sport. I know lots of guys that Eddie trained early in their careers. And none of them ever took drugs to race bicycles, ever. And they all would have told me if Eddie was trying to get them on a program.

Eddie was definitely not into Title IX or women’s lib, being from an Eastern European country. He said many things that seemed un-American at the time. But, I think he was trying to be funny, and get a reaction, not being sexist.

I guess I was just writing about my own interaction with Eddie B. I got out from under his tutelage as soon as I had the opportunity. It was more of a personality conflict, not a moral one.

Full blog post:
http://stevetilford.com/2013/02/19/eddie-b/

That's first-person narrative from someone who was there and knew all the guys, and has never had doping associated with his name.

Well that's it then. EB did not get anyone on a program. Def not blood doping program.

Absolutely not his point whatsoever, and he addresses it directly in the body of the linked post.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: ?

Ferrari

Because no one asked him to comment on this. Is this so hard to understand ?

Greg did comment on Cadel but made no connection with Cadel and Ferrari. To me that is strange considering Gregs position on Ferrari.

was cadel/ferrari not much more of secret....?

for many years this was dismissed....and even recently it has been disputed..

Mark L

Maybe so but there was talk of the connection.
Same as when Greg found out through his sources about the Ferrari connection and Lance. In my opinion that is called and inconstant stance. Your opinion is different yes?

 

[red_flanders]

Re: Re:

Comments from Steve Tilford in his blog:
(snipped)
Full blog post:
http://stevetilford.com/2013/02/19/eddie-b/
That's first-person narrative from someone who was there and knew all the guys, and has never had doping associated with his name.

You must have missed my post on one of Eddie B's cyclists Alexi Grewal from yesterday.
viewtopic.php?p=1905397#p1905397

Doping ignored
In 1979 and following years at the Red Zinger and its successor, the Coors International, I noticed that riders were systematically required to submit urine samples but no one ever tested positive. When I looked into that I learned that these tests were just for show and that all urine samples were submitted to the "toilet test," being flushed down the drain so as to save the substantial costs of having them tested.
The Coors race subsequently started doing actual lab tests, probably as a result of my inquiry, but even that program went off track in 1984 just before the Olympic Games. At the Coors race that year in Vail, Alexi Grewal, who had been selected for the U.S. Olympic Road Race team, tested positive for taking ephedrine and admitted it, which would bar him from participating in the Olympics. However under the existing rules his confession didn't count--it had to be proven by a lab test. The Executive Director of USCF then recruited the Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee and, ignoring the fact that they were both responsible for enforcing drug control regulations, they concocted a defense claiming that the drug test had not been done properly, which got Grewal off the hook and allowed him to win a gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. For a more complete account see:

Better tell Steve

But interesting, I didn't know Steve was so invested in the Lemond-is-clean narrative.
Does add up with the fact that he got anti-allergy treatment from Lemond's father in law.

Actually I don't need to tell Steve, he addresses it himself.

Guys-I was hesitant to do this post because of the “issues” that Eddie B. had, especially the 1984 Olympic games. Doping in the sport of cycling was a completely different animal back in the 80’s. If you did happen happen to come back positive, you sat out 2 weeks. Look at Alexi’s history. How many days did he serve for, what, 3 doping violations?

What happened in LA with the blood transfusions was inexcusable. Ed Burke, Falsetti, Eddie and gang got very lucky they didn’t kill someone in that fiasco. But, it wasn’t against the rules. No one lost an Olympic medal, no one had to sit out a day.

The guy has his eyes WIDE open. And still will tell you that none of the juniors who were with him at the time were doped by Eddy B. I know that blows a fairly truck-sized hole in your guilt-by-association theories.

It's not a Lemond-is-clean narrative, it's a Eddy B didn't push dope on any of us narrative.

Maybe just listen to the people who were there and knew what happened.

 

[pmcg76]

Re: ?

Ferrari

Because no one asked him to comment on this.

Greg did comment on Cadel but made no connection with Cadel and Ferrari. To me that is strange considering Gregs position on Ferrari.

was cadel/ferrari not much more of secret....?

for many years this was dismissed....and even recently it has been disputed..

Mark L

Maybe so but there was talk of the connection.
Same as when Greg found out through his sources about the Ferrari connection and Lance. In my opinion that is called and inconstant stance. Your opinion is different yes?

I thought LeMond found out about the Lance/Ferrari link when it was revealed by David Walsh and he was then asked his opinion on it? Correct me if I am wrong on this.

 

[red_flanders]

Re:

@djpbaltimore:
steve is either ignorant on eddie b's (and e.g. alexi grewal's) history, or he's protecting him (them).
that's not attacking the messenger. that's making an observation.
i have a hard time believing he's ignorant, but if that's what you want to believe, fine with me.

Not remotely the case as shown above..

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re:

Somebody up thread has made a claim that Lemond's bike business was going down the drain prior to 2001. This claim from "thehog" needs to be validated with evidence or dismissed as a lie.

Interestingly, one of Armstrong's assistants, Mike Anderson, went on the record in a published article in Outside Online saying that Armstrong had told Anderson that he was going to “put LeMond out of business” over comments about him and Ferrari.

So let's see the evidence that Lemond didn't have much of a business to be put out of.

Well I had heard prior to 2001 his original carbon frames production went bad because of his father's poor management a claim that Greg made. Then he signed a deal with Trek to sell his frames and I had also read somewhere that the sales of those frames and setup was not a blockbuster. Not sure what his sales of the frames were prior to Trek trying to ruin him due to the Lance connection. Unless we can get some sales info then we would not know. I have friends that are and were shop owners and a LeMond frame was not a top seller for them due to many reasons. Mainly because LeMond was old news in the USA. I would not know about Europe.

 

[red_flanders]

Re: ?

I thought LeMond found out about the Lance/Ferrari link when it was revealed by David Walsh and he was then asked his opinion on it? Correct me if I am wrong on this.

Completely accurate, and brought up and linked dozens of time in the history of this thread. It's in Walsh's book.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: ?

I thought LeMond found out about the Lance/Ferrari link when it was revealed by David Walsh and he was then asked his opinion on it? Correct me if I am wrong on this.

Completely accurate, and brought up and linked dozens of time in the history of this thread. It's in Walsh's book.

I just said Gregs sources in my post. HIS source was David Walsh, that falls into source or sources. I read somewhere it was not just Walsh telling Greg of the connection.

 

[blutto]

Re:

....proof is this weird thing that in the ideal sense would define the conditions that would prove something absolutely without any doubt...in reality that ideal thingee gives way to something else....in science we can prove things in a fairly reasonable way and come up with understandings that can be fairly accurate and can be used with some certainty to predict stuff....but ideal proof, ain't nowhere in our present capability, we are only human after all and not gods...

...now in the social sciences end of things the situation gets more fuzzy....so for instance in history, which is what we are doing here, there are basically two levels of proof....one consists of assembling necessary conditions to prove a case, and the other uses sufficient conditions...both have their place in historical inquiry and both have weaknesses and strengths....one is more precise than the other, and the other has the ability to tackle more complex problems ( which is what most historical problems are )....

...so what do this all mean here....well the pro-side seems to be requiring necessary conditions to shake the faith they have in their idol, uhhh, hero....the dissenters on the other hand seem to be happy with sufficient conditions, the "sorta" proof that you have so cavalierly dismissed out of hand....all I can say that from a historical perspective and given the very fuzzy data we are working with ( both pro and con ) the sufficient conditions are a plenty good tool to use....and btw it plays along the lines of the means, motive, opportunity, intent model that underscores our justice system...and that my friend is plenty good for me ( and Glenn it seems ) and of course you are allowed to chart your own course thru this discussion , because after all YMMV....

Cheers

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

Absolutely not his point whatsoever, and he addresses it directly in the body of the linked post.

I read the part you had quoted. I went to the link and could not find it in the blog post.

I had to read the "comments" section to find it.

He says that Eddie B and a few others were running blood doping at the Olympics. So did he not ask them to do it or did they just fall into some needles which happen to transfuse blood accidentally? I did not say or even insinuate that Greg done EPO anywhere in this thread. But Greg is friends with the man, still is I guess and the front of that is not good for an anti doping stance.

 

[DamianoMachiavelli]

Re: ?

I thought LeMond found out about the Lance/Ferrari link when it was revealed by David Walsh and he was then asked his opinion on it? Correct me if I am wrong on this.

Completely accurate, and brought up and linked dozens of time in the history of this thread. It's in Walsh's book.

LeMond had options. He could have not commented. He could have blown off the question by using the same stupidity act he uses about doping during the time he raced. He could have decided to be completely honest and talked about all the doping during the 80s and how that led to the situation in the 90s and 00s. Instead he chose to pretend he was shocked and disappointed, that Armstrong's doping was unique and abnormal, while expressing that in the most damning way he could.

The apologists also pretending that LeMond acted in a vacuum, that his statements about Armstrong were isolated and without motivation. The truth is that his wife and Betsy colluded with each other with the help of David Walsh. They met in real life at times to discuss and plan their strategy.

 

[kwikki]

And it worked.

They took down the biggest doper in cycling history.

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Re: Re:

Just a few years back Cadel was linked to Ferrari and I have not noted Greg saying that Cadel's link to Ferrari is not good for the sport.

So unless Lemond picks up the baton and comments on every single GT winners he is therefore a hypocrite and therefore probably a doper. (Let's ignore the fact that he did pick THE biggest doper to comment on, which if nothing else opened HIMSELF up to scrutiny and accusations of hypocrisy from Lance boys. )

I'll add that when Greg started questionning Armstrong, he had everything to lose in the process. He was pointing the finger (even in a subtle manner) at the most powerful man in town. It's inconsistent with view of a machiavelian, calculating spirit who managed to hide he started to blood dope at 15 and took EPO before nobody knew it existed.

That is not entirely true. LeMond was already losing his bike business through his own acumen. When Armstrong started promoting Trek they were going from strength to strength. The only thing LeMond was trying to do was save his own bike brand which was falling away to nothing.

By pointing the finger at Armstrong, LeMond was actually trying to gain back, not lose. That has always been his strategy. Whether a rider dopes or not wasn't high on LeMond's agenda.

Armstrong working with Ferrari was just a convenient truth for LeMond. Anyone who was on the bike game knew Armstrong was working with him well before 2001.

Can you explain how, at the time, making Armstrong look bad could have benefited Greg in terms of bike sales ??? Having a new American Tour winner was a huge boost for the cycling market in the US. Greg could only have benefited from this, especially since his bikes were manufactured by the same company.

 

[thehog]

Re:

@john swanson

That was about the same time Trek settled a lawsuit with Lemond which involved them paying $100,000 to a charity of his choosing.

Avaricious old Greg.

Or course, with an undisclosed settlement to himself.

The charity was also one he worked with, rather than some random selection. Let's not try and make this sound like he was robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, please.

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Re: Re:

Just a few years back Cadel was linked to Ferrari and I have not noted Greg saying that Cadel's link to Ferrari is not good for the sport.

Because no one asked him to comment on this.

Greg did comment on Cadel but made no connection with Cadel and Ferrari. To me that is strange considering Gregs position on Ferrari.

To my recollection, Greg made the comment on Ferrari when Armstrong admitted himself he was working with him. I don't recall Cadel Evans doing so ?

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

I thought LeMond found out about the Lance/Ferrari link when it was revealed by David Walsh and he was then asked his opinion on it? Correct me if I am wrong on this.

Completely accurate, and brought up and linked dozens of time in the history of this thread. It's in Walsh's book.

Yes I don't think Cadel admitted to working with Ferrari but I think he admitted to using him. Maybe just that one time. Depends on what anyone wants to believe with that, same as in here.

The chances that there is that one person who did not dope to win is like believing in the tooth fairy.

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Re: Re:

I confirm contributing to this thread is kind of a fight because I feel like I need to give my input and I'm not taking any satisfaction in it. It's close to being a waste of time for me. But I'm kind of drawn to it against my will because I think this discussion needs balance.

As you can guess, this thread discusses a person I care a lot about. Seeing his name covered with garbage is painful for me. Yes, this is a fight. For me, at least.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Re: Re:

I confirm contributing to this thread is kind of a fight because I feel like I need to give my input and I'm not taking any satisfaction in it. It's close to being a waste of time for me. But I'm kind of drawn to it against my will because I think this discussion needs balance.

As you can guess, this thread discusses a person I care a lot about. Seeing his name covered with garbage is painful for me. Yes, this is a fight. For me, at least.

Understand you position and opinion. I respect it. Not that it would matter to you I realize.

Yes it does need balance.

 

[@NL_LeMondFans]

Re: ?

For better or worse, Greg answers the questions he's asked. You might like it or not, find it stupid or inconsistent but that's just the way he is. Find me a moment where he says "no comment". That's not in his vocabulary. Just as he can't say "no" when someone asks for a selfie or an autograph. You're free to believe that makes him a horrible person.

So, you are shocked that the people who were bullied by Armstrong actually tried to defend themselves ?